The Cryptomancy laboratory was not quite what Leo had envisioned. He had expected to find rows of simmering cauldrons and racks of potted herbs — or perhaps an archive of dusty tomes filled with ciphers and inscrutable texts. What he found instead was rather like a pawnshop. Various knick-knacks were scattered on desks and tables: a ball of yarn, a slab shale rock, a cup of crushed mulberries…

“What’s all this crap for?” Leo asked, holding up a bucket of what looked suspiciously like snake skin moltings.

“Cryptomancy, obviously,” Golgas said. “Our art requires inputs both delicate and esoteric. Substitute a length of rope for a ball of yarn and, well, the results can be deadly. One of my novitiates lost his left ear when he used fir leaves instead of juniper in an enciphering potion.”

“What are those?” Gianna said, pointing to a hovering yellow orb. Several of them were spaced around the room.

“Don't touch that!” Golgas exclaimed.

“I didn't!” she said, withdrawing her hand. “I wasn’t going to!”

Golgas breathed a sigh of relief, running fingers through his thick beard. “It's a personal project of mine,” he said. “Are you familiar with m-grams?”

“Of course,” Gianna said, nodding.

“The fundamental problem with m-grams is that their contents are unencrypted and broadcast widely. Intercepting m-grams is trivial work, which makes them a poor choice for confidential communications. These,” Golgas used a spell to summon one of the orbs closer, “I call e-grams. E for encrypted. I’m developing a mesh network of these orbs to transmit communications with them. Anyways, shall we get to business?”

“Yes, let’s,” said Cosimo, who seemed thoroughly uninterested in e-grams. “Let’s not delay a minute longer. There are other adventurers on the hunt…”

Golgas nodded. “For this I’ve decided to use the Diffie-Hellman algorithm. I’ll be needing just a few things.”

Those few things turned out to be a drop of asp venom, three drops of ammonia, and a frozen squirrel carcass. The mixture elicited a fetid odor that made Leo cover his nose.

Golgas tossed these items into a fire, which leapt and flared emerald. He held the parchment just out of reach of it, letting the flame lick the edges. Then he blew it and set it on the workbench.

“There you have it.”

The letters on the cryptogram were rapidly changing, rotating and permutating, considering the innumerable possibilities.

“That’s it?” said Gianna, peering down at the paper. “It’s done?”

“Of course not. It will take several hours for the algorithm to complete. Meanwhile, I have work to do. Return on the morrow and I will have your results.”

“I want to know sooner,” said Cosimo. He was clearly antsy that someone had beat them to the Aetheneum clue.

“Send us an e-gram,” suggested Gianna.

Golgas considered this. “Not a terrible idea. Gives me a chance to test my new technology…”

***

They whiled away their evening at Cloud Nine, a popular tavern at the edge of campus. It was a weekend night, so the tavern was packed to the brim with students and faculty, its enchanted hearth offering warm refuge from the biting cold.

Leo and Cosimo claimed the last vacant table in the second-floor gallery, just as a young female bard took the stage below and began singing a ballad about unrequited love in soft, dulcet tones.

Cosimo snapped his fingers at a nearby barmaid. “Menus, please.”

The barmaid looked mildly affronted, but complied with alacrity.

“What’s good here?” asked Leo.

“The brews. The food is shit, but the brews are divine. I swear they put something it. Alchemy, or something. I’m partial to Wushu.”

Enzo helped himself to peanuts, which were provided free of charge at each table.

“Can I order a brew?” Gianna asked.

“No—” said Enzo.

“Yes—” said Leo.

“She has an addictive personality,” Enzo said. “If she takes to drink the way she took to swords and magic and books—”

“—she'll be dead in a fortnight. True.”

“So I can explore ancient, mythical deathtraps… but I can't have a sip of beer?”

Leo laughed. “Oh, fine. What's the harm in one drink?”

And so they ordered drinks and some food.

Below, the Bard ended her ballad and began a new tune - a lively jig about dancing fairy sprites. Students swarmed the dance floor, drunkenly swaying in time with the beat, awkwardly tapping their feet in rhythm.

“Look,” said Cosimo, pointing in the opposite direction. “You see the man over there? The one wearing an ermine coat?”

They turned their heads in unison. In the corner of the tavern, a tall man with a hooked nose and an ermine coat was poring over some documents and nursing a mug of hot cocoa.

“The old fart? What about him?” asked Leo.

“That old fart is a Visage.”

“A what?” said Gianna.

“A Visage,” Enzo explained, “is an immortal subject of one of the gods or goddesses of magic — Bael’s sons and daughters." Visages were like demigods. Extraordinarily powerful, they typically resided inside the attunement spire of their patron.

“I didn’t realize they mingle with mortals,” Leo said. “I thought Bael forbids it.”

“Some mingle,” said Cosimo, taking a long draft of his brew. “Some even teach. His name is Tak, and he’s chair of the Conjuration department. Bael forbids the gods and their Visages from directly interfering in mortal affairs, but he does not forbid them from helping humans. Teaching allows a Visage to grow his patron’s cult.”

“Cult?” Enzo did not know what he meant.

“Their followers. A god's powers wax and wane as their cults shrink or swell. The more followers, the more devotees, the more subjects with attunements… the more powerful the god becomes.”

Intriguing. Enzo had never heard that before.

The waitress appeared. “How were the drinks?” Before waiting for a reply, she turned to Leo, her eyes twinkling. “Did you enjoy your omelet toast?”

Leo had a natural charm with women. But he had little interest in them — or anyone, for that matter. Romance did not interest him.

“Oh, the omelet toast was egg-celent.”

“He has a pathological need to inflict terrible puns on helpless bystanders,” Gianna explained to the waitress.

“Would you like to hear s’more?”

The waitress did not.

***

Later that night, just as they settled into their rooms, there was a sharp whirl. Enzo felt the e-gram vibrating in his pocket. He took it out and read:

The results came back. Decoded:

Only Duke Ferdinand knows where they key is kept. You may ask him, but his lips are made of stone.

“Huh?” said Leo. “Is it another code? Or did we intercept some kind of communique?”

Cosimo was pensive, saying nothing.

“I have a feeling,” said Enzo, his mind flashing back to the symbol of the Black Cabal in the library, “that this quest we’re on — this scavenger hunt — has nothing to do with Ilhen’s Seventh. I think we’ve been ensnared in something far more sinister. Something political.”

Finally, Cosimo looked up at them, smiling. “Well, I suppose you and Tomasso can arrange an audience with Duke Ferdinand?”

It wasn’t necessary, of course. Tomasso would be meeting with the Duke on the morrow.

He had been summoned.